Familiar Faces a series of portraits by jasmine abdelkarim

My interest in photography started with using my phone to take pictures of my friends. Since I don't like being a muse for others' photos I was given the role of the photographer in my friend group. My goal is to show how I view my world aka my friends and the school community. I hope to show the beauty of my friends when they aren't expecting a camera on them and the same when they are. I hope to show the beauty of the friend group I choose to surround myself with, the seriousness, the joyfulness, anything that can be shown within this still imagery. Although this project is about my whole friend group, I chose to focus on single portraits that show the same message through their individual personalities. Starting off this project I have images that are non interactive with the camera - meaning the people shown aren't ready and was not told that their picture would be taken.

Leading into the second part of this project is the images that there is an interaction with the camera. When people get comfortable with the idea of their picture being taken, they are more open to posing and enjoying a mini photoshoot. Even though there is lots of beauty in non posed and non prepared images, there is so much you can see from a person when they are excited to have their picture taken and I hope to show that through the following- 

Here we go from individual interaction to duos interaction. Once people get comfortable with themselves in front of a camera, they are willing to bring more people into the image and create their very own unique energy.